I am a 20 year old student and was also born via IVF. I am also a believer that nature is not to be messed with, and that things happen (or don't happen) for a reason. At the same time I am quite a depressed person who dislikes life and the rubbish that it throws up at me. In short, I wouldn't care if it ended tomorrow.

The level to which very little good happens in my life and how unhappy I am suggests to me that I was better off not being born as nature intended. So please think very carefully before deciding to use IVF because your child may end up being a sad excuse for life such as I am.

Would you rather spawn an eternally unhappy being, resentful of the actions you took to create them, or just accept it wont happen and move on?

If there's anyone here that is in a similar position to me, I would be grateful to hear from you. I feel a little alone around my 'normal' friends.

I am sorry you feel that way. I am 23 years old, I can have children, but not with my husband. I love him, we want a family, so why should we give up and not fight for want we want?

You are an "IVF" baby. I can tell you now that you were wanted so badly by your parents that they went through a lot to have you. What can be better than being love and wanted??

You say things happen / or dont for a reason. If tomorrow you find out that you have a cancer, will you take a treatment or have the cancer removed, or will you just give up because the "nature" decided that you should get sick?

I am sorry that you are depressed and do not enjoy life and I hope that you will get better soon. Maybe you should get help, depression is not a fatality.
You should not feel alone, an IVF baby is like all the others, maybe just even more wanted.

I understand that you and many other parents want children very much, but even that doesn't sit well with me. Mainly because my dad is an unhappy person as well and regrets marrying my mum. He would certainly be happier without her. Therefore the only thing that kept him with her was my existence, and now he is not in a position to be able to give up the house and everything.

And your point about cancer is one that I have pondered before. Indeed I would seek medical attention for it, for the sake of my girlfriend and my family because I feel responsible being an only child. As for intervening with nature, I think it would be fair to say that the intervention of nature by means of chemicals, radiation, and other man made things have resulted in the increase of cancer cases. You understand my issues with messing with nature more now?

I'm quite happy to debate with you further. I'm interested in hearing from those who support it. My parents are yet to admit that I am an IVF child which is rather sad. I'm afraid I found out when my gran let it slip, so they don't even know I know.

I understand that you and many other parents want children very much, but even that doesn't sit well with me. Mainly because my dad is an unhappy person as well and regrets marrying my mum. He would certainly be happier without her. Therefore the only thing that kept him with her was my existence, and now he is not in a position to be able to give up the house and everything.

And your point about cancer is one that I have pondered before. Indeed I would seek medical attention for it, for the sake of my girlfriend and my family because I feel responsible being an only child. As for intervening with nature, I think it would be fair to say that the intervention of nature by means of chemicals, radiation, and other man made things have resulted in the increase of cancer cases. You understand my issues with messing with nature more now?

I'm quite happy to debate with you further. I'm interested in hearing from those who support it. My parents are yet to admit that I am an IVF child which is rather sad. I'm afraid I found out when my gran let it slip, so they don't even know I know.

I too have just read your message and it's very sad. As Souris said, your parents wanted you very much and probably went through hell to have you. You can't continue to blame your parents for wanting a child to love and nurture. You obviously have other issues in your life that need to be addressed. It has already taken some of us years to get this far with our treatment and it will take some of us years again to get a child that we all so desperatley want. This is not a decision that any one of us has made lightly. Many of us have to go through endless tests and many of the treatments are highly invasive. Lots of couples out there also end up in serious debt, just to pay for their treatment. Marriages and relationships also break up because of the strain and stress of fertility treatments. All these issues are done with one thing in mind - to have a baby. All babies are special, but IVF babies are extra special because they were not made in the conventional way and they were wanted VERY, VERY MUCH. With this in mind, I think you are out of order to come on this site, which is here foremost to support vulnerable ladies in what is probably the most important times of their lives. I hope if you ever get to a point in your life when you are in a stable, loving relationship and would like to have children of your own, that you never have to go down this route, because I don't think you truly understand the heartache that's involved in dealing with infertility and the treatments.

I know that if our treatment is successful, our child will never go short of love and will be told all about how it was 'made'. It will be made to feel special and not like a freak, because as I have already said, all IVF babies are extra special and very much wanted.

What you don't understand is that you can't always have what you want, and although you think having a baby is the best thing in the world for you it probably isn't, because it wasn't intended for it to happen. I'm not singling you ou in particular here, but i'm fairly sure there are thousands of orphans in this world who desperately want parents. They don't have a choice.

The way I see it, if IVF didn't exist, fostering a child would be the first choice. And in effect it's a better choice because you're giving a life to someone who desperately wants or who will want it. Therefore I do not blame those who select IVF, just those who present it to you as an option which is seemingly too good to refuse. Of course, these people will push for you to have it, and it seems nobody considers any negatives of doing such a thing. I think that the way I feel should be taken into account before regret occurs.

i take on board all of your points and understand that you are suffering with depression, which most of us have suffered with on this site at one point or another.....so we can all understand how you are feeling ( to some extent anyway)

however, i think that your concerns and views may be better expressed & maybe more people would be able to help you elsewhere, many organisations are designed to do this....

yes, anyone is free to post on this site but i think that alot of the things you are saying, many here do not find constructive....

I understand that you are feeling depressed (I am currently under a consultand & nurse for Post Natal Depression) so I can truly understand you feeling wothless at this moment in time.

I do however find it difficult to accept your views on IVF. I had a long illness which meant I was in hospital for 2 years -that was 1988 /89, if NATURE had been left to deal with things I would have died.

To come through this and then find out that my husband and I couldn't have children natually is very cruel but each and every woman (and man) who use this site would have faced that moment and the emotions and anger, worthless, feeling you let someone down a sense of loss etc

My husband and I had been told we had had a miscarriage and then in hospital (where I was sent to confirm this) I had a Dr who just said to me why are you wasting my time you will never get pregnant. I had been sent down by my GP with the words tomorrow will be too late. Just to be told like that with no feeling was probably one of the worst things in my life.

After all the cycles of Clomid, tests, trauma of 3 cycles of IVF I finally gave birth to a son of our own. To say nature didn't intend for this is rubbish, nature gave us all the things we needed to 'make' our son but we just needed a little assistance. I have every picture from my scans 14 black and white from hospital (I was scanned every 2-3 weeks) the pictures of him 3 day embryos and a 4d scan dvd, & something like 200 pictures of him captured from the dvd. Believe me Joshua and every other baby born through fertility treatment is so wanted and loved.

I have to say that your experiences are obviously very traumatic but I have an adopted sister (she was adopted at birth) and we both had problems in our childhood. I do not want to go into detail on here but it has left us both with a lot of issues to try and come to terms with. That said I know of other adopted children who have wonderful childhoods with loving parents -unfortunately parents don't always get it right -fact of life.

You say people should 'just adopt' believe me it is not that easy. For us I think IVF would have been our only option (I have a lot of health problems). My best friend adopted and it is hard having every aspect of your life examined under a microscope, having to go to panel to be told if you are a fit to be a parent and then the awful wait for the right child to come along.

Sorry this is a bit muddled but my Joshua means everything to us and all our extended family I cannot thank the people who made this possible for us and NOTHING will ever makeme not love him Also, he will Know where he came from -so what if its IVF he won't be any different from any other child, he will just have been conceived a little different.

Jackie

I would like to add that after my son was born -c-section, I was asked to consent to a womb biopsy, some cord and placenta samples etc to be taken to aid in research into why babies are born prematurely. I hope you never have to face a situation with a premature baby but, would you do everything you could to keep him/her alive. Nature can be very cruel can't it, this research could help you or someone you know.

Hi Hally,
Firstly i would like to say how sorry i am that you feel the way you do. Like many of the others have said, you really need to get help for the way you feel.
Have you really sat + thought about what you are saying though?
You have got big issues but i believe the underlying problem is nothing to do with the " ivf", but more to do with the fact that you feel that your whole life as been a secret so to speak.Which, fair enough i agree.
I am under going ivf + if im ever lucky enough to have a child,my child will be loved unconditionally.I would also explain how they were born into the world.
Maybe to over come your feelings you should be a man about it and speak to your parents!
Unfortunately in this world there are lots of things to worry about,like disabilities. Maybe you should appreciate how lucky you are.

Sorry to hear that you are depressed - it must be tough to have found about IVF in the way that you did and then not having been able to have an honest conversation with your parents about it - you must have a lot of frustration about the whole thing inside.

I thought I'd just share my opinion on this 'as nature intended' thing......I have struggled with this myself over the last couple of years and have finally reached a resolve that I am happy with and am therefore undertaking IVF.

The way I see it, is that humans by definition don't leave things to nature - if we did, we wouldn't have schools and universities, travel or entertainment. I also think about events like the tsunami in Asia, the flooding in New Orleans, famine in Africa or civil wars - if we left things just to nature then we would have left hundreds of thousands of people to perish.........as humans a fundamental part of our existence is the reproduction and survival of our species and for me whether it be providing chartiable assisstance to other people or assisstance in the form of IVF, we are simply using our skills to help nature along. In the end, what will be will be but we have a responsibility to ourselves and future happiness to go out their and chase what we want.

I think the question that you raise is important and I also truely believe that like me, all of the ladies on this site will have taken a significant amout of time to consider its implications and will have resolved the issue for themselves and what it means in terms of the life they create. For me its only one of many essential considerations that we all should make before having a child - in the end any parent (IVF or not) has to be prepared for their children to ask the 'why me' question and to have a loving answer to respond with.

I hope that by browsing this site you can find the answers to any questions that you have and also that you manage to find some peace to help you to take control of your future happiness.